Dangerous Liaison
by Mediancat
Summary: The adventures of "Ambassador" Taggart in the land of the Slayers.
1. Taggart in the Combat Room

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon. Eureka, by Andrew Cosby and Jaime Paglia.

This is going to be connected but independent one-shots concerning Taggart's experiences at the Unbroken Academy as the "ambassador" from Eureka. And a note: I don't follow "Season 8" continuity, otherwise known as Joss's fanfiction. The Slayers set up shop in Warren, Maryland (a town currently under the Loch Raven Reservoir in our universe; when they tried that in this universe, the local Hellmouth intervened). The Cleveland Hellmouth was dying, and has since died. There are groups of Slayers and Watchers scattered around the world; the Unbroken Academy is the training school, but the administration is pointedly decentralized, given what happened to most of the administrators of the Travers-led Watchers' Council.

X

Taggart said, "Thanks, everyone!" jovially as he entered the Unbroken Academy's combat room. "Appreciate the lesson!" And he meant it. He was in good shape for a man of his age – he ate mostly wholesome foods and on days when he wasn't scouring the wilderness for some rare animal (or, occasionally, plant – sure, his specialty was animal biology but to be a true man of the wild you had to know a lot about plants, too) or in a laboratory, he kept himself fit – but he didn't belong on the same pitch with these girls. He'd known that going in, of course – anyone who could beat the lovely Ms. Lupo in a fight was no one to be trifled with – but Taggart was a man of action. You could learn some things by watching, but some things, you needed to learn by doing.

So when the slayers invited him to slug it out with one of them, even knowing he'd get soundly beaten, he didn't hesitate in saying yes. His opponent had been a young woman named Hilary, a hair over a meter and a half tall, weighing maybe 47 kilos, black hair, maybe 16 years old. If you saw a photograph of her, you'd have seen a short, young woman, who didn't look particularly dangerous. But when you saw her walk – heck, when you saw anyone here the Academy walk except for that bloke Andrew – you knew they were dangerous. Not thought they were dangerous; they moved like the hunters they were.

He had no problem with fighting back, either. He'd never mistreat a woman, but if you had to fight, you had to fight.

There was a crowd. Guess a lot of these people wanted to see how well he could take a beating. He didn't take it personally, though. They'd clearly done something like this before, maybe when they were sizing up the new Slayers to see what they knew and what they'd need to learn.

"Any rules?" he asked.

Mr. Giles said, "Begin when I say begin. Stop when I or one of the other Slayers says stop. Nothing potentially lethal and we would prefer to avoid breaking limbs."

"Good to know. Hard to run through the forest with a busted foot," he said. "I'm ready whenever you—"

"Begin," Mr. Giles said.

Trying to catch him by surprise. Clever fellow. Hilary didn't immediately leap to the attack, instead shifting her weight back and forth, either waiting for an opening she was perfectly capable of making herself, or seeing whether he'd attack first.

He wasn't about to do that; the fight would be over in seconds, and while he had no hopes of winning he was hoping to not be immediately clobbered. So he was going to make Hilary come to him.

The crowd started to boo good-naturedly; Faith said, from somewhere behind him, "Yo! You gonna fight, or you gonna dance?"

A few seconds later, Hilary threw herself forward, aiming a sweep kick at Taggart's front ankle. It wasn't there; years of tracking and being tracked by predators of all sorts had left him with the ability to sense when one was going to strike. The way she shifted her weight showed that she was about to make a move.

Even knowing that, though, he barely got his ankle out of the way in time. He had no time for a counterattack, but backed up a few feet and took off his jacket. Hilary, in the meantime, was up and poised for another strike. It was pure poetry. And just think – Hilary was one of the less experienced ones.

He threw his jacket at her and rushed as she batted it aside with one hand. She was slightly startled – enough so that he managed to get in a good, hard shove – but as she fell backwards, she kicked him in his left knee.

That was going to leave a mark. And maybe need surgery. He took a couple of involuntary steps back and saw Hilary tumble to the mat, roll to her feet, and charge at him in one motion.

There was nothing for him to predict, here; there was also no way he could avoid it. In shape he may well have been, but he would have had to be Bruce Lee to even stand a chance of dodging. She punched him in the face, pulling the blow slightly at the last minute.

He found himself flat on his back on the mat. Hilary came over, took a blunted stake out of her pocket – they didn't allow sharpened ones in here for obvious reasons – And began to bring the stake down towards his chest.  
No such thing as cheating? Fair warning. While Hilary was drawing the stake, Taggart reached into his pocket for something he kept on hand for emergencies. Emergencies involving animals with a good sense of smell, at any rate.

As the stake came down towards his chest, he took a small spray can – non-aerosol, of course, do you think he wanted to do he poor environment any more damage? – and sprayed it towards her face.

Not pepper spray; a little formula of his own devising, based on the greatest essential oil of all – eucalyptus. Hilary's momentum carried her forward, but the spray in her face made her cough, and the stake ended up hitting him in the shoulder as she tripped over him, landing on the mat, sneezing her head off.

Taggart rolled over and scrambled to his feet. "What was that?" Hilary said angrily, choking.

"A gentleman never tells," Taggart said.

Eyes watering, Hilary came at him at top speed, but the coughing and sniffling she was still doing reduced her effectiveness somewhat. Taggart managed to dodge her first rush, and dove out of the way of the second, but the third was unavoidable. After slamming him against the wall and punching him in the stomach, she put the stake against his heart and said, "You cheated." Then she pressed the stake hard enough that it was going to leave a mark on his chest.

After a few seconds, Giles said "Enough." She pressed for another half second, then threw the stake to the mat and let him down. "Are you all right?"

"I'm – Hilary started.

"I was addressing Mr. Taggart," Giles said sternly.

"A few bumps and bruises," Taggart said cheerfully. "Nothing I haven't had before."

"The cut beneath your eye looks a bit nasty," he said. "You may wish to visit the infirmary."

"Will do."

"Now, what was in that spray you used?"

"A simple blend of eucalyptus oil and a couple of ingredients to help the oil atomize. Nothing that'll cause any permanent harm, but handy when I need to throw an animal off my trail, or defend myself. They'll sneeze and cough while I head for the high country. Doesn't work so well on birds, though." He tapped his nose. "Very poor sense of smell."

"Thank you. Hilary, are you allergic to eucalyptus?"

"No, but –"

"Thank you. I believe the infirmary should have medicines that should alleviate your symptoms."

Hilary, clearly upset, said, "He cheated!"

Taggart shrugged and said, "I did ask if there were any rules. Didn't hear anything in them about not using my spray. Never go anywhere without it." He patted his pocket. "You never know when you might run across a pack of jackals."

"He's right," Faith said, hopping down from the window ledge she was sitting on. "Nothing stoppin' a vamp from getting clever and then boom! He's got a nice plate of Slayer sushi. And there're a shitload of demons who use chemicals like that. You gotta be ready. It's what I've been tryin' to teach you."  
"Fine," she said irritably, and stormed out of the room.

"I do wish we'd known you had your device, though," Giles said. "There was the chance she could have been allergic."

"I apologize for that," Taggart said. "So, how'd I do?"

"Not bad," Faith said. "'course, you do know that up against someone experienced you'd've gotten you clock cleaned, right?"

"Quite likely. Of course, if this were a real fight, once I sprayed Ms. Kunkel in the face I'd have been running away as fast as these legs of mine could carry me."

"It doesn't bother you?" Faith said. "That you got beaten up by a girl?" She seemed to be deliberately prodding him.

"Why should it? The toughest person I've known is a woman."

Faith nodded. "Okay. Good answer."

"So," Taggart said. "Two questions. The first is whether I've done well enough to maybe do some fieldwork towards figuring out how to track vampires? Be a big help to you folks."

Faith and Giles looked at each other and finally Faith said, "What's the first thing you do when you see a vampire?"

"Depends. Am I by myself or is one of the Slayers nearby?"

"Let's go with both," Faith said.

"By myself: Run. Unless they're attacking someone, of course. And with a slayer nearby? Yell. Then run. I may be adventurous, but I'm hardly stupid. Vampires are dangerous. I've fought bears and crocs, but I've very rarely done so when I had another choice."

"Okay. Good enough," Faith said. "And your second question?"

"Where's the infirmary, exactly?"


	2. Taggart in the Demon Sports Bar

Note: I've tried to pepper some of Taggart's speech with Australian slang – but since I live on the east coast of the United States and have barely ever left this time zone, I've relied on online references. Apologies if I've gotten any of it wrong.

XXXXXXX

"Okay," Xander Harris said. "This happens with almost everyone, so don't take it personally. In the old days, Watchers could and sometimes did just throw their Slayers into the deep end and see if they survived. I call it the 'crunch all you want; we'll make more' philosophy. It ended up with a lot of dead Slayers."

"That's atrocious." Much as he liked jumping into the deep end, it was his choice to do. The folks on the former Watchers' council sounded like a bunch of evil, cowardly figjams who thought they were too good to do real work, but thought nothing about simply chucking a young teenaged girl out among a bunch of alpha predators to see if she was up for a job she hadn't volunteered for in the first place.

"Yeah. Most of the people responsible are dead, and anyone else who bought into that philosophy and is still alive is keeping a very low profile. Anyway, so now, if possible, we gradually introduce them. It's not always possible. Some of them are either driven to hunt before we can find them, or they're jumped by some demony thing that sense their power. Anyone left, we take it slow with, and though you're not a Slayer, the same thing applies."

"Sounds right enough. So, where're we off to? I know you folks don't have yourselves a dungeon around here."  
Nodding, Xander said "Right. We're not the supernatural cops. Any human-looking demons et cetera commit crimes, we tip off the local police. Any nonhuman ones do, we do anything from letting it go – if we tried to restrain every publicly drunk demon we ran across we'd never get anything else done – to telling them to knock it off, to killing them – but, you know, only for the ones who are doing really horrendous things. We have a couple of holding cells and an interrogation area just in case, but that's about it. Your Dr. Barlowe was the first human we've had in there in, I think, ever."

"Right. So, where're we off to?" He appreciated the data, but it didn't actually answer his question.

"Yeah. Right. Local bar. Every good-sized metropolitan area has a few demon bars. One we're going to is called Charlie's. It's a demon sports bar."

"So does that mean the demons sit around and watch American football and NASCAR races, or do they watch demon sports?"

"Yes."

Taggart got it. Both. "I'm guessing I'll see why when I get there."

"Yup. And so you know, what you've got on is fine; the only dress code is, wear something. As far as weapons go, we always carry when we go into a demon bar. We try not to make it obvious unless some of the customers have been starting to cause serious trouble, so no crossbows or shotguns tonight."

"Damn, Patch," Faith said. "You tryin' to cramp my style?"

"You can leave them in the car, Faith," Xander said with a drawn-out sigh.

"Ms. Lehane. You're escorting us?"

"'course. Patch is good, and you don't completely suck, but trouble starts and you're gonna want a lot more than 'good' and 'don't completely suck.' And call me Faith, okay, big guy?" She cracked her knuckles. "I'll meet you guys there in fifteen. Got some energy to burn off."

"It'll take her what, maybe five minutes flat chat?"

"Not sure what a flat chat is – a talkative pancake, maybe? But, yeah, it's a maybe a mile and a half on a dead run. Five minutes is about right."

"Give her time to knock off any nasties she might see creeping round, then." As Xander nodded, Taggart added, "And 'flat chat' means all out. I've been bopping around the world for decades but my Strine still comes out." He leaned forward conspiratorially towards Xander. "I think 'Australian' is a dominant trait. Genetics, you know."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Xander said. "I once knew a British vampire who concentrated on killing Nazis during World War II because, dammit, he may have been a soulless bloodsucking demon, but he was an English soulless bloodsucking demon. Anyway, we should probably get going."

XXXXXXXXX

Ten minutes later, at the end of a tree-lined side street, they came across a building with a single light on the outside and a small sign over the front door reading, simply, "Charlie's." There was a small parking lot in the back, maybe three-quarters full with maybe twenty cars in it. As Xander parked, Taggart said, "Not exactly what I'd expect from a sport pub."

"Demon bars tend not to want to draw attention to themselves. They save the rowdiness for the inside." As they approached the back door, Xander stopped, held Taggart back, and said, "One side."

It was a voice of command, and since this was ground Xander knew better than he did, he took a couple of steps to the right. Not two seconds later a pink-skinned humanoid with a nose like a tapir's flew out and landed on the gravel where he and Xander'd just been. "Good call, mate," he said.

"Always someone who wants to make their reputation by offing a Slayer, even in places like this. Pinky there must be new in town."

"You friends of that bitch?" Pinky said, standing up. "Good. You can pay –"

"Definitely new," Xander said. "One-time only: Trying to kill a Slayer's usually suicidal. Trying to kill a Slayer's friends is always suicidal."

"Whoa," Pinky said. "How did you think I was going to finish that sentence?"

"With some kind of threat," Taggart said.

If Pinky wasn't shocked, Taggart was a snow goose. "What? You crazy? You can pay off the bet she made."

"I don't owe him jack shit," Faith said, sticking her head out the door. "He's tryin' to cheat me."

Xander sighed. "Come on," he said. "I'll settle this."

"Just keep her away from me," Pinky said. A bemused Taggart followed the two of them inside.

The inside was ninety percent typical American sports pub. There were autographed jerseys on the wall from the local baseball and American football teams, some lacrosse sticks, and some weird-shaped bowling pins and an autographed facsimile of a 300 scorecard. The televisions were mostly tuned to the same sports, but there was one with a football game on it – European league, from the looks.

There were also trophies and equipment Taggart had never seen before, and a ball that looked heavy enough to split his skull open like a melon if it fell on his own head. Based on the thickness of the horns the demon-thing sitting under it had, it would likely just bounce right off.

Or, possibly, all three; he didn't know enough about them. Perhaps there was a field guide he could consult.

The other ten percent - the center of the place was an arena of sorts, though smallish – maybe big enough to hold an MMA match if the folks were cozy. Right now they were racing some kind of grub and placing wagers on the winners.

"Okay, Charlie," Xander said, walking straight to the bloke tending bar. "What happened?"

"Penjalus there –" he pointed to Pinky – "Bet the Slayer ten bucks that there was someone here she wouldn't be able to beat at arm wrestling. She said, sure, bring 'em on, as long as it wasn't Arnie."

Arnie was the horned fellow sitting under the giant-sized bowling ball.

"Yah," Arnie grunted. "Break her arm without trying. Wouldn't want to do that. Like her."

But Xander was nodding his head even before Arnie was finished talking. "So you set her up with Quawk," he said to Penjalus.

Penjalus said, "Yeah, I did. And she was screaming before Quawk even got to the table."

"I can't blame her," Xander said. "How much was the bet for? 'cause if you bet ten grand or one of her kidneys then I'm thinking I'm going to have to side with her."

"Twenty bucks," Penjalus said. Arnie and Charlie confirmed the amount.

"Pay up, Faith," Xander said.

"You're shitting me," Faith said. "Hey! Quawk!"

And as soon as Quawk appeared Taggart saw why Penjalus had made the bet and why Faith was mad as a cut snake. Quawk looked like Fargo's new pet, Martina.

Martina was a dodo. Quawk was maybe a half meter taller and its feathers were purplish, but they were both very much avian.

No arms.

"See?" Faith said. "And anyway, he didn't beat me."

"Faith?" Taggart said. "Penjalus here didn't say that Quawk would beat you; he said you couldn't beat Quawk."  
"You can't beat someone at arm wrestlin' who doesn't have any damn arms in the first place!" Faith said.

"Didn't ask," Arnie said. "Should have."

"And again with the 'pay up, Faith," Xander said.

"Shit!" Faith said, but took a $20 out of her pants pocket and handed it to Penjalus.

"You got two tens?" the pink-skinned demon said. "I kind of promised Quawk half."

Faith's growl told Penjalus that maybe now wasn't the time to press his luck. Heck, it would have told any grizzlies in the area the same thing. The demon took his $20 and skedaddled, with Quawk running after him. Faith said, "I'll be back," and walked outside.

"Charlie," Xander said. "Just to let you know, prop bets on that level are fine. Anything above that or anything that smells like a serious scam –"

"I know," Charlie said. "I'm not dumb. Anything dealing with humans stays penny-ante."

Xander smiled. "Good. Glad we understand each other. So, any trouble we need to know about?"  
"Couple of vampires wandered in a few days ago, but all they did was watch Manchester City take down Man U, have a couple of beers, and leave. Otherwise, the regulars. Nothing worse than a couple of brawls."

"Poker in the back room?"

"Yup. You looking for Clem?" He was eying Taggart when he said that.

Shaking his head, Xander said, "I gotta be less predictable."

As they weaved their way through the pub, past the smallish arena, Xander said, "We kill vampires on sight unless something a lot worse is in the area."

"Kind of like not worrying about the jaguar when there's a mess of army ants coming for both of you?"

"Exactly. You know, you and me should swap stories sometime. I spent some time traveling tracking down some of the Slayers – Africa, Australia and Asia mostly."

"Ever run across any cryptids?" Xander looked confused. "You know, like the yeti. Or sasquatch, or bunyip?"

"Never heard of a bunyip, and I haven't met any sasquatches – haven't spent that long in the Pacific Northwest. Yetis are real; they're also intelligent beings, so don't go planning any trips to capture them."

"Capture a sentient being? Never. I might want to meet them and take a picture just to prove to some of my skeptical colleagues that they exist, and if they were endangered I might see if I could help them survive, but that's about it."

"Good." They stopped before a closed door. "Oh. One other thing. They might be playing for money, but they might be playing for a number of other things. Back in Sunnydale, they preferred kittens."

That reminded Taggart to ask what had happened to Sunnydale – Stark had spit rivets for a week after being ordered not to investigate. "Kittens? Ordinary house-pet kittens?"

"Yup. Some species of demon find them delicious."

"Hmmm. Can't say I agree with them."

This made Xander pause in the act of opening the door. "Huh?"

Someone inside snarled, "If you're coming in, get in here,"

Xander shook his head and said, "Later," and stepped into the room.

There were seven humanoid demons sitting around a table playing what looked to be seven-card stud. There were no kittens in sight. One of them – with skin so wrinkled he looked like he'd lost about half a ton – said, cheerfully, "Xander! How's it hanging, man? Come to join in?"

"Not tonight. It's initiation time."

Clem tilted his head and looked at Taggart and said, "New Watcher?"

"Not exactly."

"Howdy!" Taggart said.

Clem said, "Hey there," back. No one else greeted him. Then Clem said to Xander, "Give me till the hand's over."

"Sure. Hey, where're the kittens?"

Pointing to a demon with a truncated equinoid face and black and white stripes, Clem said, "Greeve's allergic. Tonight it's strictly cash."

And then they were quiet for a few minutes. Showdown was between Greeve and a woman who looked almost human, if you discounted the silver eyes and the bone spurs on her elbows. The woman won with a nine-high straight vs. Greeve's three kings.

"Deal me out this hand," Clem said, and the three of them walked back outside the poker room. "So," he said with a friendly voice, "I'm Clem."

"Jim Taggart. Everyone calls me Taggart. Good to meet you." He shook Clem's hand.

"You too," he said. "Xander?"

"Here's your $10," Xander said, slipping the demon a folded bill.

"I don't mind doing this, you know," Clem said. "But thanks."

"Doing what?" Taggart asked, right before Clem's face exploded. There appeared to be four snake-like protuberances of varying colors, and his ears had suddenly developed extensions that seemed to be a combination of a dinosaur's crest and an elephant's ear. The center, beneath the eyes, was now practically all mouth, with what appeared to be nearly a shark's dentition. He blinked, and took a step forward, "Fascinating!" he said. "Do the snake mimic tentacles have a practical purpose? And is the skin on your ears to help cool you down when you get too hot?"

His face resumed its former appearance, "Uh, yeah," he said. "I can get really hot when I exercise. I don't know about the snakes, though. They've always been like that, and, you know, I've never been much of a scientist." He turned to Xander. "Look, I need to get back to the game."

"Cool. Talk to you later."

This was damned nice of them, bringing him to a demon bar to see the number of different species there were – and even to pay one to show off a bit for his benefit. He told Xander as much.

"Sure," Xander said. "Let's go with that."


	3. Taggart au naturel

"Cryptids?" Giles asked.

"That's right, Mr. Giles," Taggart said. "Xander mentioned that he'd met a yeti or two and I was wondering if some of the other things cryptozoologists chase might also be real but magical." When he didn't answer, Taggart said, "You know I'm not going to exploit them. I might want a picture or two, but nothing more."

"That wasn't why I was hesitating," he said. "It is simply that the varieties of 'cryptids' number in the hundreds, and while my memory is capable, it is not eidetic."

"I wasn't expecting you to know all the answers personally. Just maybe to point me to someone or somewhere I could check."

"That, I can do," Giles said. "Some of them are indeed fictional, but occasionally the ones that sound more ludicrous are in fact true. The Jersey Devil, to take an example, exists – except there is not simply one and they have no interest in humans whatever. They are refugees from another dimension who were driven here when their own was taken over by some evil force, and the pine barrens were the closest they could find to the habitat present on their own plane."

Nodding his head, Taggart said, "Thank you. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about."

"I will do what I can," he said. "In the meantime, how is your tracking device progressing?"

"Oh, I have the basic machinery set," Taggart said. "Figured that out a couple of days ago. But to set up for specifically for vampires, I'm going to need an actual vampire to calibrate the device against. Any chance I get you folks to capture one rather than offing it? Just long enough to test the device, of course. And only if they can tell me 'no worries' about doing it."

"It shouldn't be too much of a problem for them," Giles said.

"Good to hear. Just give me a holler when you're about to bring it in. I'm going to need to get my equipment ready. Oh – and, speaking of that, Mr. Giles, is there an extra room I could set up a small laboratory in? I may love my fieldwork but testing and all that needs a room to itself." He'd brought some equipment with him; enough to do some small tests and make, test, and jigger with the tracker, plus some to check out the local wildlife. The east coast of the States was one of the few areas of the world he'd never spent significant time in.

"Mr. Taggart, we have ample extra space. Find an unused room to your liking – check with Robin Wood to make certain of its availability – and set up. Although –"

"Yes?"

"Vi and Willow informed us that the experiments at Eureka had a tendency to, um, be a bit on the potentially disastrous side."

"If anything, she's understating things. Gives life there a little extra zing," he said, grinning. "But I imagine you probably would rather avoid things like that, right?"

"Quite," Giles said. "We deal with enough destruction on a regular basis as it is."

"Wouldn't do for me as ambassador to wipe out my own embassy," Taggart said. "I'll be careful and avoid anything more dangerous than a honeybee."

"Thank you."

XxXxXxX  
A couple of hours later, Taggart had his equipment moved into a side-building that looked at one point like it had been a maintenance shed of sorts – maybe six meters square with a garage door and a regular one. Then he'd requested and been given two of the tables from the cafeteria room ("We may need them back if there's an apocalypse," Mr. Wood had said).

And that was fine by him, of course. "Sure!" He'd said. "I've had some experience with apocalypses myself."

"Really?" Wood had said.

"It's good oil, mate. Doomsday devices, random wormholes, and at least once time kept repeating until Nathan Stark sacrificed himself to make sure it kept going. Thank god for Sheriff Carter, eh?"

"Yeah. Good. So you understand, then."

"Absolutely. You never know when a couple of tables can be the difference between the world ending and continuing to turn."

Now, there wasn't room for any large cages, so capturing anything larger than a red squirrel was right out. But most of the larger animals from the east coast of North America were also present on the west coast, so it wasn't a huge loss.

It was daylight and there was nothing dangerous on Academy grounds anyway, so he went for a little walk, with some of his collecting equipment, just in case.

An hour later, he was back in the lab, dirty but satisfied. He'd found a cicada killer wasp, a couple of male spring peepers, and signs of a star-nosed mole, but he was unable to track down the little bugger. The cicada killer he took a couple of measurements of and let go; it had eggs depending on it, after all.

The mole, he'd find later. The spring peepers, though, he had plans for. Dr. Parrish had asked him to track down some chorus frogs for the non-lethal weapons division; he had some idea about weaponizing the cries of various animals to induce specific reactions in enemy combatants. Spring peepers worked as well as any other chorus frog. He'd track down a couple more, quick-freeze them (they'd live through it, of course; Taggart had no compunctions about killing animals when necessary, but only when necessary), and ship 'em off.

By that point Giles had managed to find a few old books dealing at least in part with cryptids, along with beasts he'd believed to be strictly fantasy. These mostly dealt with creatures of Europe and Northern Africa, like the marozi and the ghost cats of England. (The marozi was fictional; the ghost cats had a variety of explanations, but some of them were exactly that: ghosts.) They also had chapters on things like dragons and centaurs.

There were a lot more species out there than even he'd ever dreamed of, although some of the big ones weren't real; there were no leprechauns. Or elves, for that matter.

Kelpies were real – evil, but real. And the megalodons that some people had reported had come through a portal from an alternate earth where they had never died out.

A lot of the sightings of animals thought extinct could be chalked up to this, including thylacines. Now damn, that was a portal he might want to reopen. He loved his native land, but its attitude towards the thylacine had been atrocious.

And –

No. This one, about Santa Claus, he refused to believe.

Oh, it said he was real alright. It also said he was a demon who came down children's chimneys not to give them presents, but to messily devour them.

Which was complete rubbish. He'd met Santa. Well, Dr. Drummer, who Taggart knew was Kris Kringle even if he couldn't prove it. And if Drummer was a demon who ate children, Taggart was a brumby and GD seriously needed to upgrade its employee screening process.

He couldn't read any more at the moment. This bugged him to the point that he needed to find someone to talk to about it.

XxXxXxX

He'd argued with Giles, to no avail. The information about the "Santa Claus demon" had been gathered over nearly two hundred years, and that stood against Taggart's instincts. Faith hadn't been interested in the discussion, Wood had no idea what he was talking about, and when he brought it up to Xander, he said, "I was told this by someone I trust."

"Well, on this, they didn't know what they were talking about," Taggart said.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Xander said in a surprisingly cranky tone of voice. "She had more experience than everyone in this building put together. If she said Santa Claus ate babies, then Santa Claus ate babies. Do you understand?"

Taggart didn't get it, but Xander didn't seem like he was much up for rational debate right then.

"She had more experience than everyone in this building put together. So if she said Santa Claus was a demon, he was a demon. Got it?"

Something had clearly wound him up, so Taggart simply nodded. Xander said, "good," and stormed off.  
Andrew, a nervous young man who reminded him of Fargo without the super-genius - though it wasn't as though Andrew was dumb by any stretch of the imagination - came up to him a few seconds after Xander had disappeared. "Um, Mr. Taggart?"

"Just Taggart," he said. "What've you got there?"

And then he explained to Taggart about Anya, using language you only saw in bad fantasy novels, but still getting his point across. He couldn't have known, of course, but he felt for the lad.

Still didn't mean that Anya'd been right, of course. Maybe there was some demon out there pretending to be Santa Claus, but that didn't mean he was.

He'd have to learn about this demon. Track it down. Stop it. Or he'd have to convince Dr. Drummer to tell the truth. Either way, this slander about Santa Claus would not stand.

"Thanks for the history lesson," he told Andrew.

"Sure!" The young man said. "Hey, um, you're going to try to come up with a machine that'll track down vampires, right?"

"That's right," Taggart said. "Not that they don't do a bonzer job of it already, of course. This would just be adding a little science to it, is all."

"Oh, that sounds cool! Can I help?"

Taggart supposed he could use a lab assistant, though Andrew's resemblance to Fargo made him ask, "Do you have a habit of going around of inappropriately pressing buttons, pulling levers, or anything like that?" Not that he'd carried any self-destruct devices with him or anything, but tinkering with temperature gauges could make the difference between quick-frozen and live animals and thawing and dying ones.

"No. I mean, I'll probably ask a lot of questions but I promise I won't touch anything that looks dangerous unless you tell me I can. And I have other things I do during a crisis."

Taggart nodded his head. "Okay, then. Just drop on by my lab whenever you have a chance and I'll see what you can do." If he bollixed everything up, Taggart would simply dismiss him.

"Thank you thank you!" he said, then sprinted off down the hall.

Odd chap. Of course, he wasn't really one to judge. There was a time few years back Eureka'd come under the influence of pollen; the good sheriff and his daughter figured out the problem and fixed it, but not before Jack had seen him trying to cut down one of Eureka's cell towers au naturel. He'd have told them about it in advance if he could, but the electromagnetic waves coming from the tower were disrupting the migration patterns of the local avian population and he couldn't wait to go through channels.

As for why he was naked, well, why not? He wasn't where he'd've expected anyone to see him.

Still, Andrew being around meant that naked lab Wednesdays was definitely out. Ah well.

XxXxXxX

He managed to capture another four spring peepers in the nearby woods early that evening, before the sun was down; Faith had asked him to stay within Academy grounds after dark, if he wasn't driving somewhere.

"Security system?" he asked.

"Yup. Nothin' supernatural gets in without someone knowin' about it."

"Magic can do wondrous things, I'm told. Right?"

"Yeah," Faith said.

"So why not just bar 'em all at the gates?"

"You sure you're a genius? Do you think Slayers get their powers from _science_?"

That actually hadn't occurred to him. "That's an excellent point."

He was just putting away the four peepers when Faith entered his lab. "We got something on something called 'the Goatman of Maryland.' It's maybe an hour drive. Few of us are going to head down and check it out; Giles said you were into this kind of thing."

"Hold on one second," he said, closing the lid on the last container. "And done. Goatman of Maryland, you say? Never heard of it, but it sounds up my alley. Let me grab a few things and I'll be happy to tag along,"

"Cool. And then maybe on the way down we can talk about why havin' Andrew near anything like this is a wicked bad idea."


	4. Taggart in the Woods

Within five minutes Taggart found himself bundled in the back of an SUV with Faith, Hilary Kunkel, and a young Watcher he hadn't yet met. "Rajiv Rodrigues," the young man said.

"Jim Taggart. Good to meet you. Goan?"

"By descent, yes," he said. "I was born here, though. And good to meet you as well."

Rajiv was driving, because most Slayers, for reasons that were still unclear, had difficulty controlling motor vehicles.

Ms. Kunkel had been much less than pleased to see him. "The fuck is he doing here?"

"Hilary –" Faith said.

"No. Bad enough we have to have him here at all. I sure as hell don't want him coming with us."

"Hilary," Rajiv said mildly. "He is here. He is staying here. And this is something that he may in fact know more about than most of the rest of us."

"He's going," Faith said. "You don't have to."

She looked at Rajiv and Faith, didn't see any sympathy in their eyes, and settled into her seat, muttering, "I don't have to like it," under her breath.

"He nearly beat you in a fight," Faith said. "He didn't kill your family. Knock it off."

Taggart thought about saying something to try to mitigate the circumstances, but decided not to – him speaking up could make things worse. For her part, Ms. Kunkel kept a sullen look on her face but didn't say anything else.  
He hadn't realized his presence was that divisive. Certainly, no one had made him feel less than welcome, even if he wasn't exactly what they were used to, and vice versa. He'd have to have a talk about this with someone later.

In the meantime, maybe a change of subject would lighten the mood a bit. "So," he said cheerfully. "Goatman of Maryland. What do we know?"

"I thought you were an expert on cryptids," Rajiv said.

"I am," Taggart said. "I haven't heard of every one in the world, though. I mean, from the name the rascal's obviously half man half goat, but is there something else?"

"Stories've got him going after people with an axe," Faith said. "Could be total bullshit, of course; kids make up crap like this all the time, and it ain't like Freddy Krueger's real. But tonight someone ended up dead, so if it's real, we need to take care of it, and it's fake, we turn the fucker over to the local cops."

Rajiv then gave a description: It was human-sized, with the head of a male goat, complete with horns. Its torso was that of a Caucasian male human; its legs were furred and it had a tail."

Now that sounded familiar. "What about its feet?"

"Conflicting stories," Rajiv said. "Some say it has the feet of a goat, others say its feet are those of a hairy human. I know what you're thinking."

"I don't," Hilary said.

"They were in the chapter you're supposed to read for class tomorrow," Rajiv said.

"I was planning to do the work when we got back," Hilary said. "So don't write me up yet. "

"I won't," Rajiv said. "Mr. Taggart and I are wondering whether this Goatman could be a satyr."

Taggart said, "If it is, though, it's not behaving very satyr-like. Too right they can be bastards, but the legends don't have them as maniacal killers."

"Any tricks to killin' one?" Faith asked.

Rajiv said, "They're not quite as strong or agile as a Slayer, but faster on a dead run."

"Bet it can't outrun a crossbow bolt," Faith said.

"Or a tranquilizer gun," Taggart said. When Faith shot him a look he said, "I'm no good with crossbows, really."

XxXxXxX

Most of the rest of the trip – which took about another forty minutes – was spent either in silence, in strategy sessions, or with Faith trying to argue him out of using Andrew as his lab assistant. "Guy's a good cook when he sticks to normal food. He's also pretty good with summoning magic. And he tries. That's his problem. He tries way too hard. First time he cooked a meal here he spent the better part of a day grillin' us all steaks. No problem. First day here. But he kept up the pace for a solid week before we finally figured he'd end up blowin; the whole food budget for the next year inside six weeks. After that, he went so low-budget we had nothing but bologna sandwiches and macaroni and cheese for a few days until we told him to knock that off, too. It took us a while – and we're _never_ talkin' about haggis day – but we finally got him settled down."

"Sounds like more than half the folks in Eureka," Taggart said. "I appreciate the heads-up, though."

"So you're stickin' with him?"

"I'll give the lad a chance to prove himself."

When they stopped, it was in an area of mixed suburb and woodland. "Plenty of room for a being of the woods to get itself good and lost," he said. "But why're we stopping here?"

Hilary pointed ahead, rolling her eyes. "It's a crime scene up there. See the sirens?"

Down the road in the distance, Taggart saw flickerings of red and blue light. It was a fair ways off, though. "Didn't realize that was the crime scene, though."

"Yeah, it's why we stopped here," Faith said. "You and me'll sneak up to see what they're up to."

"I'll see if I can see any hints that anything passed by down here," Taggart said. "Mr. Rodrigues? You're welcome to join me if you want."

"In a moment," Rajiv said, "I'm going to call in first."

"I won't go far. Ladies –" but Faith and Hilary were already out of sight. He could see which way they'd gone but he couldn't see or hear them. "All right then."

Rajiv joined him a few minutes later, but by the time Faith and Hilary reappeared maybe ten minutes after that, he hadn't found any clues that there was anything non-native in the vicinity. He'd seen tracks of a white-tailed deer, some rabbit fur caught on a thorny plant, and an American toad, but no hoofprints or signs of something human-sized crashing through the brush.

"They're packing up now," Faith said. "They got the scene of death marked off but that's about it. That much blood still there, someone really went to town on our victim."

"Definitely not normal behavior for a satyr," Rajiv said. "Was there anything indicating it would have to be someone of superhuman strength?"

Faith looked at Hilary, who said, after a few seconds, "Test time again, I see. No. A human being could have easily done that kind of damage. But there's nothing arguing against it, either. There were cops in the woods, too, so someone might have gone that way."

"Not bad," Faith said. "The cops'd probably be searchin' the woods anyway, unless someone saw the killer peelin' off and roarin' down the street, but otherwise, pretty good."

"So," Taggart said. "Nothing saying your killer, whoever it was, came down this way; is the plan to wait till the jacks head off and then do our own search?"

"Got it in one," Faith said. "That'll be a bit, so smoke 'em if you got 'em and drain it if you got to."

Taggart, who neither smoked nor had to pee – his bladder control was unparalleled, a necessity for marathon sessions of tracking down animals – spent the time instead sorting his equipment. Tranq gun, check. Atomizer with eucalyptus, check. Night vision goggles, check. Portable Eureka-built multifunctional wilderness survival tool, check. Knife, check.

Right then. He was ready to go.

XxXxXxX

They split up into groups of two. He went with Faith, while Hilary went with Rajiv. "Ain't the the time to be proud. You see anything suspicious, yell, then go after it. Got it?"

"And I thought the Watcher was supposed to be in charge," Rajiv said mildly.

"Love you, Jeeves, but how long have you known me? You got a better plan, I'm willin' to listen."

"I don't," he said.

"Okay then. You do, let me know. Till then –" and she turned around and walked off into the woods. Taggart hurried to put his goggles on, and sped after her.

"Faith," he said. "Slow down a mite."

She turned around and swore under her breath. "What the fuck you got on your face?"

"My night-vision goggles. That way we don't need to use flashlights."  
"Good thinkin'," she said.

"Mind if I see if I can catch this bugger's trail?" They'd started where it looked the police had stopped. Rajiv and Hilary had gone one way, he and Faith were going another. There was definitely evidence that someone had come this way – someone other than the cops, who'd done their best not to obliterate the trail, though they hadn't been perfect at it.

He hadn't seen any footprints, but the ground was covered with brush and low-lying creeping thorny plants. "Someone's definitely been through here. See where these vines and shoots are crushed. And – here we go." He took his EMPT (Eureka Multi-Purpose tool), set it to pick up, and plucked a piece of fur from where it had caught on one of the thorns.

"Whaddaya got there?" Faith asked.

"I'll tell you in just a smidge," Taggart said, and placed the fur in a little compartment in the EMPT. It wasn't a Star Trek tricorder; it couldn't analyze DNA, but it could pinpoint species. After a minute. "Wild goat," he told Faith.

"So the Goatman is a satyr," Faith said, taking a sword from its sheath.

"Could be," Taggart said. "Could just be some fellow wearing pants made out of goat fur."

"Huh?"

Taggart shrugged. "I've done it. Don't see why someone else couldn't have the same idea. Does make the satyr theory a lot more likely, though. Now let me look around. We know whatever it is passed this way. Ah. There we are. Follow me."

And then he took off through the woods, leaving Faith to hurry behind.

A few minutes later, they'd maybe moved a quarter mile when Taggart stopped.

"What's up?" Faith asked.

"Trail's gone." They were actually in something of a clearing. "See any footprints?" He didn't see any, himself.

"Nope. Shit. I hope we're not dealin' with a teleporter."

"Why would a teleporter shoot through the brush?"

"Huh. Yeah, good point. If the Goatman could blink from one place to the other it'd likely've done so at the scene. So if it didn't run off, it didn't teleport and I'm guessin' it can't fly or that'd be part of the legend –"

"Or burrow," Taggart interjected.

"Yeah, the ground'd be lot more torn up. That leaves climbing. And that means definitely not a satyr."  
"Don't be so sure," Taggart said, looking up. "There are goats in Morocco who climb trees all the time to get at the fruit. And they're not nearly as intelligent as satyrs are supposed to be."

"See anything?"

"A splendid example of temperate deciduous forest," he said. "But in the way of evidence, no. I think we'll need to go up ourselves to see what we can see."

"Can you climb?"

"Like a gibbon," Taggart said.

"Okay. I'm assumin' that means you're pretty good. Let's get up there to see if we can pick up a trail." And she scrambled up the tree faster than most people he knew could run on a flat surface. Taggart was good, but he wasn't superhuman, and it took him a minute to do what it had taken Faith about five seconds.

"Old gibbon," she said, smirking, the second after he got there. "So. You see what I see?"

And after a second, he did. It would have been impossible to see from the ground, but the branches between the oak they were on and the next tree over had been tied together by something – a closer look showed it to be strips of some sort of skin.

"Human," Faith said angrily. "Okay. Whether this is a person or a satyr, fucker's going down." She ran off across the branches and made it with no problem. Taggart followed her, more slowly.

The makeshift bridge stretched across five trees, some at least 75 feet in the air, and very little of the path would have been visible from the ground. All of the branches could easily support Taggart's weight, and there was ample evidence that this was a well-used pathway.

Finally they came to a tall maple that didn't seem to have any obvious way forward in the trees.

When he looked up, he saw nothing. "I think he went back down," he said.

"Me too. Come on."

Halfway down Taggart saw something. "Hold on!" he hissed.

"What?" Faith said, stopping a second too late, as she reached for a branch that was mostly cut through. It broke as soon as she put her weight on it, and she fell backwards and down, striking several branches as she fell to the ground.

He immediately yelled, "Rajiv! Hilary!" at the top of his lungs and doubletimed it down the tree. As he did so, a figure came out of the nearby brush, carrying what looked to be a full-bore medieval battle axe in its right hand. Its legs were hairy and it appeared to have vestigial horns from its head. Smaller than he would have expected, not that the biological details were important at the moment.

Faith hadn't hit her head on the way down and she was conscious, but her left foot was jutting out in a way not physically possible for a healthy human. She had managed somehow to get to her feet – er, foot - and drawn the sword from its sheath, but hadn't had a fair go at getting herself set, and barely got the sword up in time to block the satyr's blow, which knocked her right back down. Then it raised the axe, preparatory no doubt to chopping her into tiny pieces.

Pulling out his tranquilizer pistol, he fired three shots at its back (harder to reach and pull out; same theory he used with other animals. One bounced off its thick back hair, but one struck the satyr between its shoulder blades and the other just above its right buttock.

It halted mid-swing, glared at Taggart, and roared angrily. Then it robbed its back against the tree and knocked out both tranq darts. The amount of stuff in there should have been enough to take down a charging rhinoceros, but it only seemed to have slightly slowed down the satyr. It then jumped a good five feet in the air – putting its head at a level with Taggart's feet – and swung the axe at him. He barely avoided a double depodectemy, the blade passing close enough to his legs that it could have doubled for a shave.

All of this had given Faith extra time to roll out of the way and stand up "Rajiv! Hilary!" he shouted again, and was echoed by Faith, who was again on her feet. While the satyr was distracted she swung her sword as hard as she could, hitting it in its left thigh, cutting deep if the spurt of blood meant anything. She stumbled but didn't fall.

The satyr, though, bellowed in pain, turned towards Faith, and knocked the sword from her hand.

Taggart had no doubts that an intact Faith could have jobbed the satyr bloody, but she wasn't intact. He fired off a couple of more tranq darts – they both stuck – and, eucalyptus atomizer in one hand, jumped on the satyr's back. It dropped the axe in shock. Quickly, he sprayed the eucalyptus full force into its face, right before it ran backwards and slammed him into the tree.

"Okay," he said as he slid down. "Maybe not one of my better ideas."

Before it could do anything else, though, it suddenly stopped and fell backwards. Faith had chopped off its ankle with its own axe – and a knife had suddenly sprouted from the middle of its back.

Hilary and Rajiv had timed their entrance perfectly. The satyr fell, obviously dead.

After checking on Faith – her ankle was, like he'd thought, broken – Rajiv came over and pulled him to his feet. "A bit more exciting than you're used to, I'd imagine," he said.

"Bit of a quiet night, actually," Taggart said, grinning.


	5. Taggart in the Lab

"Okay, Andrew," Taggart said. "Could you bring me the two samples?"

There were a number of samples in the lab, but Andrew knew which ones Taggart was referring to: the sample of the satyr's fur. Hilary had had to carry the satyr's corpse back to the SUV – it wasn't like they could leave it around for the locals to stumble on – Rajiv had assisted Faith, and Taggart had been left to take all the equipment, including the sword and the axe.

Before they destroyed the satyr's body, Taggart had asked if he could take some samples. So now he had samples of the satyr's hair, skin, horns, and blood, and photographs of the corpse ("Which," he'd said to reassure them, "Are in a password-protected camera that it would take your Miss Rosenberg to force her way into.")

He also used the EMPT to take a few quick scans of his – the satyr was definitely male, as Faith had said. (Actually, she'd said, "How the fuck was he not tripping over that?") – his insides. The EMPT wasn't a replacement for Dr. Blake's medical devices but it could do a passable x-ray.

So the body had been burned and the ashes buried and scattered, leaving him with the hair, skin, and blood. And the axe, which had been magically wiped clean of Faith's fingerprints – good call, that; apparently the lass had something of a prison record – but nothing else.

Faith's ankle was definitely broken, and she hadn't done it any favors by putting more weight on it when fighting the satyr; Slayers healed faster than baseline humans, but she was still going to be off her feet for a few weeks.

He'd express-mailed the flashfrozen spring peepers to Dr. Parrish this morning, with a suggestion that maybe they could also be used as a kind of auditory camouflage. Parrish was a figjam if ever there was one at Eureka, but he was almost as good as he thought he was. (The lad's problem wasn't that he wasn't good, it was that he wanted everyone else to acknowledge how good he was. He wanted to be better than Fargo. And, alas for him, that was never going to happen.)

So, while that didn't leave him at loose ends, exactly – there was still the vampire tracker to be worked on, though without an actual vampire, that was just tinkering, really – it leave him with a couple of days to work on other things, so he decided he might as well analyze the satyr's remains while he was waiting.

"Here you go," Andrew said, handing him two small, sealed bags. One bag had hair from the leg; the same thing the EMPT, in the field, had said was wild goat hair. The other bag contained actual wild goat hair. "And –"

"Yes?"

That seemed to open the floodgates. "I was checking up everything I could find on satyrs, you know, because Rajiv said this one was acting unusual for a satyr, and when I read up I found some good pictures of what a satyr's supposed to look like. Not photos, but drawings like you'd find in old naturalist books, and here it is. See if you see what I see."

Taggart looked at the pictures in the book Andrew was carrying for a moment, then called up the photos on his camera. "The horns are longer," he said. "The satyrs in the pictures have more hair, and their penises are longer than the one we're examining. And they seem – bigger. More muscular." After a second, "But the horns were genuine and the fur was real."

"I know. I'm not completely sure what it means, but I thought it meant something and figured I should tell you as soon as possible."

Nodding, Taggart said, "And indeed you should have. Well done, lad. Maybe I can clear up this mystery."

An hour later, though, he hadn't cleared up anything, although he had detected some subtle differences between true wild goat hair and the hair he'd taken from the satyr. The differences were nearly undetectable – certainly anyone happening upon satyr's hair in the wild would believe it to be goat, if they analyzed, unless they were mighty careful - but they were definitely present. He wondered if possibly some of the other samples they had on record at Eureka were in fact from animal-human mixes, like the satyr. Of course, he didn't know which ones were real, and which ones were still the province of fiction, but they could be worth a second go, just to be sure.

And they sure would have fooled most of the people at Eureka. Hell, they'd fooled him and the EMPT.

Hmm. "Lad, could you ask Mr. Giles to come here at his convenience?"

While Andrew was gone, he busied himself doing a quick check of the satyr's skin, horns, and blood. The horns were similar to the hair: almost exactly identical to that of a wild goat, with the disparities only detectable if someone was specifically looking for them.

The skin was human skin. Extremely tough human skin, but in no way distinguishable from the skin of any other human he'd seen. And the blood was, to his great surprise, A+. He could gotten a transfusion from the satyr if he'd had to. The erythrocytes were a mite larger than any human's he'd seen, but to the best of his knowledge they were not out of the realm of possibility.

He was examining some other factors in the blood when Andrew came back, and to Taggart's mild surprise, Mr. Giles was with him. "I didn't necessarily need him right this instant," he said.

"I know," Andrew said.

Mr. Giles said, "As it turns out, there is nothing demanding my immediate attention at the moment anyway. What do you need, Mr. Taggart?"

"Have you ever seen any satyrs?"

He nodded. "A handful in my earlier days. Why do you ask?"

"Young Andrew pointed out a few differences between the satyr we killed and the satyrs in the illustrations of the various books I've seen," he said, and went on to describe them. "The pictures in the books: are they accurate?"

"Yes. There would be no point in a field guide having wildly inaccurate information. That does not mean they are without flaw. The satyr illustrations match the living satyrs I've seen."

"Look at the photos of this one, then," he said. The corpse was wounded and minus its left foot, but was otherwise intact. "See the differences?"

He nodded his head. "Now that I look more closely, yes. This is not a purebred satyr. Contrary to the legend, there are female satyrs; but they are unintelligent, unlike their male counterparts, and decidedly more goatlike than the males are."

"Does that," Andrew asked. "Explain why satyrs are always supposed to be so interested in human women?"

Mr. Giles said, "Not just human women; women of any intelligent humanoid species. To a male satyr, breeding with a female satyr strikes them uncomfortably of bestiality and rape. They do so only to propagate the species. Also, while they prefer the company of women of other species, it is difficult for them to father children by them."

"How rare are they? Female orange _felis domesticus _rare, or mule giving birth rare?"

"Hmm. Given that I believed the latter to be impossible and have encountered a couple of orange female cats, I would say the latter. I've never encountered one myself."

"Do you think maybe that's what made this one crazy?" Andrew ventured, timidly.

"I'm afraid I don't know enough about either satyr biology or society to be able to give you a definitive answer," Mr. Giles said. "Satyrs are not typically homicidal maniacs, however."

"Andrew? You know the magic books better than I do. Up for a spot of research?"

"Sure!" He looked at Mr. Giles.

"There is nothing in the rare books room that will help you," the older man said firmly.

"Oh, poop!" Andrew said as he left.

"Is there going to be any difficulty with him doing the research?" Taggart asked.

"Not in the least. Andrew is quite skilled in that regard. He does, however, have a tendency to wish to delve into subjects that he is better off not looking into."

"There are things man was not meant to know? Not really an attitude I agree with, in the main."

Chuckling, Mr. Giles said, "Not precisely. There are things Andrew is better off not knowing. Everyone has their areas of weakness. Willow, for instance, is far better off not having any caffeine past the early morning hours. Sometimes, when a new book has come in, I need to be forced to go to bed instead of staying up all night reading it. Andrew has a tendency to look at spells, think the effect will be 'cool,' and do them with little regard for the consequences. This has never led to any potential apocalypses, fortunately, but has led to us, among other things, having to capture dragons the size of American robins before they fled past the borders of the Academy and panicked the locals."

Comparisons to Fargo had been accurate, then, just with a different emphasis. "Fair enough. Robin-sized dragons, you say?"

"Fire-breathers, at that," he said. "To his credit, he was attempting to find a magical flamethrower to assist the Slayers on killing vampires – they are vulnerable to fire. Unfortunately, he mispronounced a word and ended up with living flamethrowers. We were fortunate to not have anything burn down."

"You managed to send the little beauties home, I hope," Taggart said.

"Four of the five," Mr. Giles said. "The fifth, alas, broke its neck when it collided with the side of the main building. We try to avoid killing innocent beings wherever possible."

"Good to know."

"Also, tonight we are sending out our three most experienced Slayers on a specific mission to catch and not kill a vampire. Three most experienced, save Faith, of course, who will be out of action for at least three weeks."

"I could call some of the boys back in Eureka. See if they could rig her up a motorized wheelchair."

The response surprised him. "Good lord, no," he said. "Can you imagine what a terror she'd be? Tearing up and down the halls at thirty kilometers per hour, forcing people to dive out of her way? She'd probably even want to go out vampire hunting in it, and I shudder to think how we'd be able to stop her."

Taggart didn't see what was wrong with that, honestly; sounded like fun to him. But when at the Academy, do as the Academians did, he supposed.

He'd still run it by Faith, of course.

"Much appreciated," he said.

"Is there anything else?"

Taggart thought. "Other than an undestroyed vampire, I'm good for the moment. Yourself?"

Blinking as though surprised Taggart had asked the question, Mr. Giles said, "Doing reasonably well. The summer months tend to be the quietest in terms of significant plotting by major villains. That doesn't mean we haven't had the occasional problem, but nothing much worse than a psychotic satyr or vampire nest. Faith's injury is the first significant one to a Slayer since the Academy's school year officially ended."

"So this is what passes for summer break?" he asked.

"Yes. Half of the young women you see here are assigned to this Hellmouth full-time. The remainder are taking what would be called, were we a traditional boarding school, advanced summer classes. During the school year we have perhaps four times as many here."

"Eureka's Tesla High's a lot like that, except it does its boarding over the summer – young men and women come from all over the States, basically to see if they might be worth recruiting into Eureka full-time; even the ones that aren't are usually good enough to write their own tickets to pretty much anywhere else they care to go." For the most part. They also used it to weed out the genuine 'mad scientist' types, those who didn't care a fig for who they hurt while they were making their discoveries. The careless types, like Dr. Fargo had been once upon a time, were a lot easier to deal with. They had a sense of decency; it was just a matter of reminding them of it every once in a while. Hell, he'd been that way himself once upon a time.

"Interesting. In any event, Mr. Taggart, have a pleasant afternoon and evening." He began to walk out.

"I will," Taggart said. "Hey, one more question. Any chance I could see this Hellmouth you folks are guarding?"

Mr. Giles walked into the wall. "What?"


	6. Taggart in the Administrative Wing

First things first: Mr. Giles was simply stunned from impact. After he recovered and replaced his glasses, he said, "Hold on a moment, if you would." Then he reached for the phone on the wall. "Please put me through to Mr. Wood," he said after a few seconds. "Robin? Giles. I'll be a bit late for our appointment . No, no, I trust your judgment. A change of diet will probably be good for them. Just make sure you buy enough. Thanks." He hung up. "We were to make our next order from out food service. Mr. Wood is a vegetarian. So," and the mildness left his voice. "Why on Earth would you want to see the Hellmouth?" he said in a voice that was shocked and "I'd bloody well better like the answer" at the same time.

"From the tone, I'm guessing that 'Why not?' isn't going to be a good enough answer?"

"Your guess is accurate."

Taggart shrugged. "Well, that is most of it, no porky – if 'Because it's there' was good enough for George Mallory, it's good enough for me. I'm not planning on opening it or crawling into it or doing anything but looking from a respectable distance. Maybe see if there's any radiation coming from it; my EMPT –" he held it up and showed it to Mr. Giles" – might not specialize in things like that but it can do a fair imitation of a Geiger counter."

"What are you expecting to see?"

Taggart said, "A hole in the ground. Maybe with a few nasties cavorting around. I'd just like to see if it looks as dangerous as it is. Might want to be able to identify one if it pops up sudden-like in Eureka. Or anywhere, really."

"One of the sure signs is an increase in monsters, vampires, and mysterious deaths in the vicinity. In the case of Eureka, neither Vi nor Kennedy has been able to detect anything more dangerous than a tree sprite within a ten mile radius of the town."

"Quite right. I told Miss Rosenberg why there weren't any vampires, but why there aren't any other demons there beats me. Of course, I'm hardly an expert. Still, if you would like to send a team to try to figure it out, I'm certain they'll be well-received."

"Willow and Vi are doing some research into the topic while they're there," Giles said.

"I know their scientific qualifications; Vi's a crackerjack plant biologist and there can't be five people on the planet better than Willow with computers. But are they magically qualified?"

Looking like he was trying to repress a smile, Mr. Giles said, "Willow is to witchcraft as she is to her use of the dread machine. Vi is no witch but she's well qualified to assist."

Taggart assumed that 'the dread machine' meant computers; he'd noticed that Giles tended to be somewhat on the technologically-averse side, though he was clearly no Luddite. "Ace then, is she? Alright then. Can I see the Hellmouth?"

"Will you follow all of our instructions?"

"Of course! You're the natives here; I'm just a tourist."

After a few more seconds, he said, "I'll arrange something. It may be a couple of days."

"No rush," Taggart said. "I'm guessing it's not going anywhere."

'Unfortunately not."

X

The following afternoon, after Taggart came back from a day trip to the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge – he'd gotten some fascinating shots of waterbirds – including an American White Pelican that had no business being in this part of the country – but was tossed out and told never to return when all he did was try to get a closer look at a snapping turtle. Apparently the sight of Taggart floating in the water motionless had "disturbed the other visitors,' or something. He couldn't understand why; it wasn't like he was floating au naturel, or even simply wearing a swimsuit. Fully clothed, he was. You had to not move in order for the wildlife to know not to be scared of you. He'd gotten some lovely pictures that way of the snapper devouring a pickerel frog, and some native fish besides.

But then the park rangers came and tossed him from the park. This was why he didn't go to parks very often. Too much interference. Oh, he knew why the rules were there; a lot of blokes would happily throw trash everywhere and run off with precious snapping turtle eggs if they could. Taggart knew better, though. All they'd need to do is look at his credentials.

Ah well. Back to untracked wilderness for him. Lot more fun, anyway.

He was walking to the cottage they'd assigned him when Faith came hobbling up behind him. Fast. "You know," he said, "I'd bet a dollar or two you could probably outrun me even on those things."

"Damn right I could. Save your money, Jimbo," she said.

"I see you've decided on my nickname," Taggart said. "I've heard worse."

"Yeah, me too."

"How's your ankle?"

"Still hurts like a motherfucker, but it's getting better."

Taggart said, "And it'll still only take three weeks?"

"Yeah. Not so much. Who knew that jumping around and fighting on a cracked anklebone would be bad for a joint? It didn't break so much as shatter. It'll be at least five weeks before I'm ready to slaughter a vamp or two. At that, I'm lucky to have Slayer healing. Someone without'd be down for a few months and it might never heal right."

Taggart made a decision. "Alright then. I'm going to flex a little of my Eureka muscle."

Laughing, Faith asked, "You gonna offer to carry me, Jimbo? Thanks for the offer but I've still got one good leg here."

"Not what I was thinking, lass. I had something else in mind." And then he explained all about the motorized wheelchair.

"You're not shitting me?"

"No defecation involved whatsoever," Taggart assured her.

Faith's grin threatened to split her face in two. "Man. That would be wicked. I'd love one of those."  
"Mr. Giles seemed to think you might be something of a holy terror on wheels in such a thing," Taggart said.

"Damn right I would," Faith said. "Any chance you can add some weapons? Maybe a side-mounted stake gun?"

Taggart said, "I'll see what I can do." Which would be nothing; Eureka wasn't going to mount weapons on a wheelchair for anyone who wasn't in law enforcement or the military. Since she'd love everything else, Taggart didn't feel guilty.

"And again: Wicked. Anyway, I didn't catch up with you just to chat. Giles wants to see you in his office."

Must be about his visit to the Hellmouth. "Sure thing. Where is that, exactly?" Despite technically being the ambassador from Eureka, he'd never been to the administrative section of the Academy. He'd only encountered Mr. Giles, Mr. Wood, or the teachers elsewhere.

"Follow me. And try to keep up." Faith spun on her good foot and began to hobble away at a speed marathon runners would have envied. Taggart had to hurry to keep pace.

A couple of minutes later, down a nondescript hall he barely noticed until Faith took his hand to guide him through it, he was in the administrative wing. "Why didn't I see this before?" he asked.

"You saw it, but a spell Red set up makes so that no one who's not supposed to be there goes down there. Extra protection in case we're ever invaded. You're with me, so you didn't have any problems." They stopped in front of a door.

"What about mind control?"

Faith looked up at him and said in a voice with sorrow and rage, "Got that taken care of too, but not before someone used the loophole to try to come in and blow the place up. A junior Slayer, a teacher, and a Watcher died stopping the bastard. Now no one can come in here who isn't coming of their own free will."  
"Sorry. Didn't mean to tear open old wounds."

"'salright. Slayers got enough of those that if people had to tiptoe every time something sensitive came up we'd never be able to open our mouths. No way you could have known." And she immediately knocked on the door and yelled, "Yo! Giles!"

"Enter," Mr. Giles' voice said. Faith opened the door, and there the man sat, behind a wooden desk that looked like a relic from the Victorian era, and may well could have been. The room was about as opposite from Fargo's office as it was possible to be, with the exception that both rooms were well-organized.

Fargo's office, though, was uncluttered practically to the point of being spartan. Mr. Giles, however, was stuffed to the gills with books, papers, maps, and other documents, most of which looked and smelled as old as they probably were, and some of which were bound in animal hide of some sort. They were shelved cleanly and stacked neatly. The telephone almost looked like an invader from another time, as did the Rolodex towards one edge of the desk. There was no computer, though there was, perversely, a fax machine.

"Thank you, Faith," Giles said. "Mr. Taggart, we've arranged for you to see the Hellmouth, per your request –"

Faith, who'd settled into a chair, said, "Jimbo, are you out of your fucking mind?"

"Quite possibly," Taggart said amiably. "It's been a while since I've had my yearly evaluation. Why do you ask?"

"It ain't called the Hellmouth because it attracts puppies and baby ducks. The baddest of the bad guys want to get that thing open. I'm talking people who make Hannibal Lecter look like a kitten. And even not counting those nutjobs, it draws in vamps and evil demons by the buttload. When we got here one demon had a damn spa set up so others could bathe in the energy. Bitch and a half getting that shut down, and we still get pissed former customers gunning for us."

"Indeed," Mr. Giles said. "We have all of the entrances save one collapsed under tons of rock and dirt, and that one entrance is under our control, but unlike the Hellmouth I was formerly stationed at, which was concealed underneath our school and thus made more difficult to locate, the nearest surface entrance to this one is not buried under anything save dirt – dirt and the remnants of Old Warren."

"Old Warren?"

"Yes. A little short of a century ago, Warren was a couple of hundred people in a small valley, and the state had plans to flood the vicinity to produce the Loch Raven Reservoir. Events conspired such that the nascent Hellmouth beneath the streets of Old Warren became active at that time, and a combination of mysterious deaths and political maneuvering led to the reservoir having different dimensions than originally intended – though the ground collapsed and buried the entranceways under hundreds of tons of dirt and rock – although, unfortunately, this did not seal the Hellmouth itself. It took the demons attracted by the Hellmouth's power nearly a century to carve out new access tunnels – their doing so was one of the reasons we relocated here, rather than to Cleveland and its dying and now fully defunct Hellmouth."

"Can't you just close this one up, then? A few tons of concrete and chromium steel'd work wonders, I'd think."

Faith laughed bitterly. "It doesn't quite work that way. It took an whole town falling in on the last one, plus millions of gallons of seawater, to finish it off. "

"And while the Chesapeake Bay is not far distant," Mr. Giles said, "Things have not yet reached the point where we needs must create a crater out of Warren. Things would have to be quite dire for that."

"It'd affect a lot more people, for one thing," Taggart said.

"Yeah. Sunnydale was damn near deserted by the time it started falling to the center of the Earth. Maybe a hundred people, tops, died in the fall, and that was a small town. This ain't a small town; around fifty thou live in the area and a shitload more come in to eat, work, and play."

"So since you can't shut the thing off entirely, you make anyone who wants to exploit come along one path where they're easy prey. It's an old hunting trick. Not that I use it for hunting, mind you." Well, most of the time. Taggart was no vegetarian but stuck with eating plants and invertebrates when he was out in the wild.

Mr. Giles said, "In any event, We have arranged for your visit, which shall be late tomorrow morning."

"Why in the morning?" Taggart asked, purely out of curiosity. "If it's underground and all, it's not going to stop any vampires either way, right?"

"Just 'cause vamps can be active during the day doesn't mean most of 'em are," Faith said. "Same with most demons. It ain't remotely safe, but it's a hell of a lot safer."

"Can you be in the athletics field at 10:45 AM tomorrow morning?"

Taggart said, "No worries. I'll be there."

X

The rest of the day was uneventful, except that he had to tell Andrew that he didn't need to read up on satyrs all night and that he'd be no good the next day if he handed Taggart the wrong chemical and instead of preserving an insect they turned it into an unstoppable killing machine. Of course, that wasn't likely; all the 'unstoppable insect killer' formulas were safely back in Eureka where they belonged.

He called Eureka that evening. If his diplomatic status were more formal, he supposed it would be an official report, but it was just a couple of chats. He talked with Jack first and got the scoop on whatever disasters had befallen the town since he left; then to Fargo to check on the science. Dr. Parrish had gotten the spring peepers and was busily working on his sonic weaponry. He asked for the motorized wheelchair – Fargo said he'd get one out there by the end of the day tomorrow – and then if he could talk to Dr. Drummer.

"Why do you want to talk to Dr. Drummer?" Fargo asked. Taggart's conviction that the man was secretly Santa Claus was well-known, and universally disbelieved.

Which meant he had Buckley's chance of convincing Fargo it had nothing to do with that, so he may as well not bother. "I've heard someone slandering his good name here."

"How do they even know Dr. Drummer?" Fargo asked skeptically.

"Well, not him, exactly."

"We've been over this, Taggart –"

"They think Santa Claus is a child-murdering demon!" he fairly exploded. "That's as slanderous as it gets!"

After a second, Fargo said, "Not the way the legend is usually told, true, but Dr. Drummer isn't Santa Claus!"

"I know our opinions differ, lad –"

"Your opinions differ from everyone," Fargo said. Then he added, "I will ask Dr. Drummer to call you. Don't be surprised if he doesn't, though."

Drummer was an amiable sort, and he'd taken Taggart trying to prove his secret identity exactly the way you'd think Santa Claus would; he was amused, but hardly offended. "That'll be fine. Thank you. And give everyone a howdy for me, would you?"

A few hours later, a bit before midnight and right as he was settling down, he got a call from Dr. Drummer himself, who would be delighted to come by and inform the Academians of the error of their ways, even though he was not in fact St. Nicholas in any shape or form.

Alright then. Santa Claus was coming to town.


End file.
